Easter is the perfect chance for a getaway for many Brummies - but staggering new research has revealed we could be forking out thousands for using our phones abroad.

Anybody flying off to the USA for a break has been warned they could manage to tot up bills as high as £3,000, reports the Mirror.

The cost of texts, calls and voicemail messages can easily run into £25 a day while data bills can hit £190.

And the US is the most popular destination for Brits apart from Europe, according to research by price comparison website uSwitch .

But families are in danger of getting caught out by expensive roaming charges if they don’t plan smartphone use, it said.

For a two week trip to Florida could land them with bill shock totalling £3,022 with kids using phones and tablets to stream music and movies or keep in touch with friends on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram.

£50 - for just 8 minutes online

The study found while mobile phone companies cap usage abroad to £50, smartphone users can hit that limit by downloading just eight and a half minutes of music on Spotify outside the EU.

“With the cost of data as much as £8 per megabyte, that cap means you couldn’t even get through the first two songs on Adele’s album ‘25’ before hitting your limit,” uSwitch said.

And it warned the limit could tempt account holders to opt out, leaving them at risk of racking up a massive bill.

The survey found a quarter of Brits who travelled abroad for a break came back to a mobile phone bill £52 higher than expected, almost a fifth faced one that was £75 more and one in ten were hammered by £100 more.

And it revealed the top causes of bill shock back home were forgetting to switch off data roaming, thinking wi-fi was switched on and handing devices to kids to watch a movie or play games.

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How to beat it

Experts are urging Brits travelling outside the EU to check out roaming deals, stick to the cap set by their provider or take out a monthly rolling SIM only contract for the holiday.

Ernest Doku, telecoms expert at uSwitch.com said: “There’s good reason to be wary of roaming charges. With a single MB of data – enough for just four minutes of web browsing – costing up to £8 in the USA, it’s well worth looking into roaming deals before you travel.